Summary of the study
In September 2001 Professor David Reynolds of Exeter and Plymouth Universities
and Professor Roderick Nicolson of Sheffield University began a three-year
study on children at a Midlands junior school called Balsall Common School, in
order to test the effectiveness of a breakthrough treatment for learning
difficulties, founded by the Dore Program.
Using an industry standard test of Dyslexia (DST) a sample of 269 children from
three year groups were screened for Dyslexia. Based on this a group of 35
children were identified as having learning difficulties and subsequently
placed on the program.
The study took place using a cross over design, where half the children
began the treatment immediately and half were held back for 6 months.
The children were then assessed annually for their reading scores and SATs test
scores in math, writing, comprehension, which were performed by the school
every July on all pupils before the summer break. Every six months the
children completed a range of tests assessing dyslexic difficulties.
Coordination and balance skills and attention and hyper activity symptoms to
look for risk of ADHD were also performed. The children also recorded
their subjective feelings of change after the program had finished.
The results of the study astounded. In summary the entire study showed
that:
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Following the treatment, the children improved to a 'no risk' status, on an
industry standard test of dyslexia.
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The treatment was just as effective for children with a previous diagnosis of
dyslexia.
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The more at risk the children were before the treatment, the more they gained
from the treatment.
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The beneficial effects of the treatment persist even a year after treatment.
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The year before the treatment, independent school reading tests showed that the
children with learning difficulties were falling behind their peers, making
around 6 months improvement in 12 months. After completing the treatment
the same tests showed that the same children were making 18 months improvement
in 12 months, catching up with their peers.
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A year after treatment the children had continued to maintain and even exceed
the same rate of progress as their non-learning difficulty school peers.
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At the beginning of the study tests revealed around 50% of the children to have
ADHD. Following the treatment re-testing showed that only a few still
showed ADHD attention symptoms. The 80% 'cured' showed no sign of ADHD
symptoms reoccurring even a year after the program.
Peer Review of the Study
What is a peer review?
The process of a peer review involves the article being sent to academics drawn
from experts in the field to be evaluated. The article must receive the
approval of the majority of the reviewers before it is published. The
peer-review process is intended to ensure that the science being presented is
sound and represents a useful addition to scientific knowledge. A peer
review is entirely independent.
The final paper written on the study, 'Follow-up of an exercise based treatment
for children with reading difficulties', is the most recent paper relating to
the Balsall Common Study to be subjected to a peer review and is now due for
publication in 'Dyslexia' ' the official journal of the British Dyslexia
Association.
This paper represents the final 'phase' in a series of papers that were written
throughout the three years of the study at Balsall Common School; therefore it
assesses and encompasses the outcomes of previous papers also.
These papers can be found in
Research papers.